The 65th Conference on World Affairs opened Monday with the traditional procession into Macky Auditorium, which has been renamed "Ebert Hall" for the week in honor of longtime participant and film critic Roger Ebert.

Ebert died Thursday after a long battle with cancer.

"No one spent more time in this hall than Roger," CWA Director Jim Palmer said in his opening remarks.

Prior to the keynote address, attendees observed a moment of silence while putting their thumbs up in the air in honor of the critic's signature gesture.

Ebert attended every CWA between 1970 and 2010 except 1995, when there was no conference, and in years when he was recovering from surgeries related to illness.

University of Colorado Chancellor Phil DiStefano took a moment to honor Ebert, "a superstar of this conference."

"Ebert once joked that at a time when famous speakers can pull down $10,000 to $25,000 to speak, this (the CWA) would seem like an offer they could refuse," he said. "But they don't. They do it in the name of education, enlightenment and civic engagement, and all of us are beneficiaries."

The hall was a packed house Monday morning, with every seat filled to hear a talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith, who spent 26 years with the New York Times covering six American presidents. He covered the Vietnam war from Saigon and the Cold War from Moscow.

Smith quipped in his opening remarks: "Thank you to the conference organizers who put off the snow until tomorrow."

In his address, titled "Who Stole the American Dream?" Smith said the middle class has lost its political power.

He cited Earth Day demonstrations in 1970, when nearly 10 percent of the American population demonstrated, and said seven major pieces of environmental legislation were brought forward within a year, including the Clean Water Act and amendments to the Clean Air Act.

"They were all signed by that great tree-hugging environmentalist Richard Nixon," Smith said, tongue-in-cheek.

The reason? Smith said the public was outraged about what was happening to the environment, and the nation's leaders felt they needed to respond.

"There was a connection between Washington and the people and it was absolutely vital, and we've got to go restore it," Smith said.

Smith also told the audience that American homeowners in the late 1980s owned 70 percent of the value of their homes.

By 2009, that figured plummeted to 40 percent, with the value of homes shifting to Wall Street banks and wealthy investors, Smith said.

American homeowners lost $6 trillion before the housing bubble burst, he said.

"We're not talking about trickle-down economics," Smith said. "We're talking geyser-up economics. ... This is the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of America. It moved from ordinary and middle-class people to wealthy banks and investors."

The conference continues through Friday, with more than 200 panels and events that are free and open to the public.

Palmer said the conference is trying to achieve a new mix this year, with 40 percent of the panelists being conference first-timers and the other 60 percent repeat guests.

"We're aware that the conference is aging," Palmer said. "We want to make sure that we're involving not just new participants but younger folks with different perspectives."

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